Creative Wellness
It was raining, one of those slow Carolina rains, and I was alone in my small home studio with a cup of decaf going cold. Everything was ready except the part I kept avoiding: the vocals. I have always loved music, but singing makes me nervous. There is no data to hide behind and no chart to interpret, just my voice.
I hit record and sang. Not perfectly, and not always on key, but something in me let go.
What it covers
Creative wellness is making things and solving problems in new ways. It is not limited to painting, poetry, or music, and it does not require talent. Earlier wellness models folded creativity into the intellectual dimension. I added it as the ninth because making something is how we metabolize uncertainty. It rests on four things.
Making
Producing something instead of only consuming.
Play
Doing something for its own sake, with no outcome required.
Novelty
Solving problems in ways you have not tried before.
Release
Finishing and sharing work that is not perfect.
Perfection and release
For years I equated perfectionism with survival. In medicine, precision is expected and the margin for error is small. That same mindset can suffocate creative work. When I started writing and recording these pieces, the old reflex came back: fix that word, rerecord that line, don't publish until it's perfect.
It took me a while to learn that creative work does not need to be perfect. It needs to be honest. The producer Rick Rubin argues in The Creative Act that work has to be completed and let go: "Art may only exist, and the artist may only evolve, by completing the work."
What the research measures
Girija Kaimal's group at Drexel University measured salivary cortisol in 39 healthy adults before and after 45 minutes of art making with markers, paper, and clay. Cortisol fell significantly overall, though it rose in about a quarter of participants, and prior experience with art made no difference. The 2016 study had no comparison group, so it cannot separate the effect of making art from the effect of a quiet 45 minutes.
Writing is making too. In a 1988 study, James Pennebaker, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, and Ronald Glaser asked 50 undergraduates to write for 20 minutes on four consecutive days, either about traumatic experiences or about superficial topics. The students who wrote about trauma showed stronger lymphocyte responses in blood tests and made fewer visits to the campus health center in the six weeks that followed.
Listen and read
The Well-IQ assessment is free and takes about 15 minutes. It scores Creative alongside the other eight dimensions.
Educational content, not medical advice.